Kiddos,
I hate to tell you this, but I think you should know that I think your generation is likely to be the last to experience the wooden roller coaster.
There has been a lot of action from Six Flags, Cedar Fair, and others choosing to demolish their wooden roller coasters. Some have opted to refurbish them, others have opted for straight demolition and redevelopment. The last few weeks I have been engaged with customers who are working to adjust their liability insurance coverage to reflect attraction additions and subtractions for the second half of the season. There has been some sticker shock in some of the coverage as Wooden Roller coasters are now being classified in a much higher liability category then they were previously. In some cases on the basis of insurance coverage alone it is no longer economical to continue to operate the attraction.
Wooden Roller coasters are cheap to construct but have higher operating costs. They depreciate in value much faster and require full time professional carpenters and craftsman to keep running unlike their steel counter parts. These folks are actual craftsman, not people who replace parts but people who know how to actually build something from scratch in order to fix a problem. Carpentry has always been an art form and roller coaster carpentry is becoming a dying art. As these rides die out, entire departments are being culled. The kids coming out of the school house are so focused on getting into college that there is an extreme shortage of knowledgeable tradesmen.
This morning a good friend of mine called, he has been a carpenter for a park for close to 25 years. Management told him at the end of the season that the ride he has taken care of all this time will be demolished, and his services will no longer be required. At 62 years old he knows he isn't likely to be hired on anywhere else, and even if he was he would have to move away from his birthplace and the place he will likely be buried. He is lucky that the park is giving him enough severance that he will never have to work another day in his life, but sad that he did not get to retire on his own terms.
These events and others have resulted in the perfect storm that is likely to lead to a long term trend. Certainly doesn't help that the post millennials have almost zero tolerance for attractions which offer any form of discomfort as a part of the experience. God forbid you actually have to look up from your cell phone for two seconds in order to listen to the safety spiel or remember that selfie sticks can be lethal when a human body runs into them at 40+ MPH.
What's amazing is the percentage of parks these days have no desire to hire full time retain in house talent. It seems between having to deal with the trade unions and the high cost of paying people who actually know what they are doing for a living is by modern business standards asking to much. Which is funny, because we charge twice as much as consultants then we ever made as employees and we get to expense mileage, airfare, rental car, meals, and visits to strip clubs.
So those of you who are apart of generation X, cherish those rides on your favorite coasters. Within the next few years a lot more wooden coasters will be heading to the retirement home in the gift shop with a lot of collateral damage along the way.